Student journalists applaud ban for NBA owner: 'Sterling's attitude has no place in the U.S.'

On Tuesday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver hit the Los Angeles Clippers owner with a lifetime ban from the league and a $2.5 million fine for racist remarks caught on tape. In the days ahead, Silver will also push other owners to force Sterling to sell the Clippers franchise.

Los Angeles Clippers fans hold up signs referencing the Donald Sterling situation before the a playoff game with the Golden State Warriors (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)

“I would be shocked if the NBA owners did not vote unanimously to force Sterling to sell, and they should,” Joseph Geller writes for The Dartmouth at Dartmouth College. “There is no room for racism in our society, and Silver and the NBA clearly understand that. Bravo, Silver. Bravo.”

Unsurprisingly, the same positive sentiments do not spread to Sterling.

“Donald Sterling has the name of a rejected ‘Mad Men’ character and alleged views that would seem as regressive and backward in the 1960s as they do now,” University of Nebraska junior Walker Edwards writes in The Daily Nebraskan.

“Donald Sterling’s most recent actions are absolutely appalling, so blatantly racist and harmful as to make one wonder if they’re reading them in 2014 or 100 years prior,” contends Knox Student co-sports editor Gavin Crowell at Knox College in Illinois.

“Make no mistake about it: Donald Sterling’s attitude has no place in the United States — much less the culturally diverse community of Los Angeles,” Daily Trojan managing editor Euno Lee similarly argues at the University of Southern California. “His statements and his actions were repugnant and completely out of line. … [T]his was a uniquely egregious case of racism that, in all likelihood, will never be repeated.”

By comparison, Princeton University student Miles Hinson asks readers to imagine an anachronistic outdoor scene.

“Picture for a moment the sun rising over a vast plantation where virile black bodies pick cotton every day, gaily singing their hearts out all the while,” he writes in The Daily Princetonian. “Thus the world is in its rightful order. I imagine visions such as these crossed Donald Sterling’s mind more than once.”

As Hinson argues, “Something about the way he managed the Los Angeles Clippers transcended ‘everyday’ racism. Instead of, say, a few off-color remarks here and there, he actively worked to build a modern day plantation system within the NBA. His ownership of his team was an embarrassment to a league whose success has been built on the backs of black men.”

While ultimately happy with the punishment, CU Independent staffer Tommy Wood at the University of Colorado Boulder points out it has been an awfully long time in coming.

“When Silver announced the sanctions, it felt as if he were making up for more than three decades of racism that the NBA had enabled,” Wood argues. “It’s great that the league finally came after him. It isn’t great that Sterling made the content of his character obvious long ago, and the NBA repeatedly did nothing.”

According to Wood, “If you give a mouse a cookie, it asks for milk. If you appease a racist, he takes it as a free pass. Sterling had a free pass for 33 years. Much of the damage he caused can’t be undone, but at least he’s silenced now. So good for you, NBA. And shame on you, NBA.”

Building on the good — and the shame — of the Sterling situation, students suggest recognizing what it represents about the NBA and global community.

“Racism is still a reality,” Daily Illini sports columnist Aryn Braun writes at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “There are thousands of Donald Sterlings in this world, and it is up to the rest of us to change the culture that allows people like him to poison what should be a contest of strength, not color.”

Crowell at Knox College similarly contends that lingering racism has not yet gotten the lifetime ban just doled out to Donald Sterling.

“When Adam Silver made his final decision on the matter at hand, he made a statement,” Crowell contends. “He made a statement that the NBA will not publicly allow such horrible statements to come from so high within the organization. And that’s a start. But what about what’s privately said? What about the feelings and opinions that boil inside millions of sports fans across the world as Sterling’s case unfolded itself? Silver cannot police that, and he cannot police what we say or feel as a public. That is our job to mediate.”

Dan Reimold, Ph.D., is a college journalism scholar who has written and presented about the student press throughout the U.S. and in Southeast Asia. He is an assistant professor of journalism at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, where he also advises The Hawk student newspaper. He is the author of Journalism of Ideas (Routledge, 2013) and maintains the student journalism industry blog College Media Matters. A complete list of Campus Beat articles is here.